


Enough Pieces to Build a Whole

by Illume



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x19 spoilers, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Feels, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Knows, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illume/pseuds/Illume
Summary: Sam just doesn't understand.No matter how much Dean wants to kill Chuck, he just can't do that to him.He had twelve years of small things, and maybe he can live with that.But, maybe he can do this one full thing. Just this once.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 11





	Enough Pieces to Build a Whole

They had a chance. For the first time in what seemed like forever, they had a chance.

So, naturally, they were arguing over something. Because things couldn’t go smoothly —not even Winchester smoothly— when they were planning on taking on actual fucking God.

“I said no, Sammy,” Dean looked up for the first time in the conversation. His tone hadn’t done the job, so maybe the determination in his eyes would make his brother drop the subject.

Out of all the things he was willing to negotiate and plan for, this one was definitely out of the question.

“He killed them, Dean!” his brother repeated for the upteenth time. “All of our friends, everyone we know, everyone we ever saved, the people we gave everything for. He killed everyone we love.” His voice grew increasingly quiet as he went on, breaking eye contact with him and carding a hand through his hair.

A pang of pain shot through his chest then.

It wasn’t like he didn’t understand where his brother was coming from.

Sam had kept it together for so long, longer than Dean, really. Even after they both resigned themselves to follow Chuck’s plans so he could bring them all back, even then, Sam hadn’t mentioned Eileen, not wanting to get her more involved than she already was, like last time. Dean hadn’t done any of that.

It was only after they found the closest thing they had to a chance that the man allowed himself to really think about her. And, from there, there was no turning back. Sam was angry, furious at the thought of Chuck using her as a pawn, for even focusing his attention on her in the first place. When the man fully allowed himself to think about her being gone, it had been a full day before either Jack or Dean saw him. The next day, he bottled everything back up and reached the conclusion that had them arguing now: Chuck had to die.

Only, Dean couldn’t do that.

“You had twelve years,” it was quiet, almost too quiet for Dean to hear, but not quite. “That’s more than I had with Jessica, or Amelia, or...” he shook his head and looked up with unshed tears. “That’s more than most of us get.”

He knew, something bittersweet inside him knew, that they had been living on borrowed time for too long. Ever since the first time he watched the angel die, exploding in a million pieces, the way Lucifer always loved to do things. Ten years had passed and it happened more times; it never got easier, but it also never stuck. Ten borrowed years that Dean spent being a chickenshit, always putting off doing something in favor of a finish line that, as a hunter (let alone a Winchester), he should’ve known was unreachable.

A small pang of guilt rose as he remembered the twinge of annoyance he felt the last time he heard Cas’ voice, because, really? Now? Couldn’t he wait until they found a way out of this one, if they managed to?

But Sammy was right, twelve years of just being were so much better that a single moment of absence. Twelve years of Dean having to explain his jokes with an eye roll, of him teaching Cas how to make the perfect cup of coffee. Twelve years of them sitting together, drinking a couple of beers, a burger in front of each. Twelve years of the hunter feeling a small sense of pride whenever Cas reached for said beer, because the level of alcohol surely wasn’t going to get him drunk, and the taste was probably not the best, but he still drank it. No matter the situation, Dean knew he could hand the angel a beer and he would take it, and twelve years of that almost made up for all the times he wished Cas reached for his hand instead of the bottle. Twelve years of puzzle pieces that could almost make wholes sounded so much better than the cold nothingness he could feel now.

But they also had a few wholes, and that was the problem, because all of them were bad. The fights, the disagreements, the unanswered calls and cold shoulders; the fucking betrayal and the abandonment. Those hurt fully, they weren’t tempered by the things they didn’t say or the ones they did but never fully addressed. 

Then there was Dean’s stubbornness, his temper. The anger that went through him like vines that only wanted to choke him and everyone he cared about until his vision went dark. Shit, it seemed like ages ago that he forced Cas to ride next to that demon who was possessing the body of their kid and the angel had barely objected.

In those twelve years, that was what they had fully. That was the only thing that he had given Cas completely and without disguise. Because all the almost’s and the small pieces of something’s weren’t enough for Cas to assemble even a fraction of the full picture. Because, as he finally said the complete words that made it all real, Cas had believed that Dean didn’t feel the same, that he never hurt with the thought of spilling everything even in the most mundane days.

He had only given Cas the worst type of whole and, even then, all the angel talked about was the beauty and the love that he saw in him. For the first time in twelve years, Cas answered a question that had been left unsaid by Castiel; because it wasn’t about Dean not thinking he deserved to be saved; it was about why would the angel think he did.

What would happen, then, if Dean gave in to Sam’s words? What would happen if he agreed that they should kill Chuck after this was over?

He wanted to do it. He wanted to do it for all the reasons Sam was listing and more. He wanted to do it for the people they saved, and their friends, their family, for Sam, for Jack, for their mom. He wanted to do it for himself, for all the times he felt like he was insane for thinking he was hauling a rock up a hill just for it to fall right back down.

But then there was Cas. And, sure, he could add him to the list of people that asshole messed with in every way he could think of; for the way that he treated him like a convenient plot device, or the easiness with which he abandoned him for so long. For the easy dismissal he threw their way when Dean demanded that he bring Cas back. But, how could he? How could he just keep with his anger after what the angel had told him?

By the time his mind stopped racing, his tears had already fallen and Sam was looking at him with a pained expression that he knew he was sporting too.

“I can’t, Sammy,” the words came out of his mouth as a sob. “I can’t do that to him.”

And there was something, perhaps the smallest of glimpses of all the things that were practically burned into Dean’s brain, replaying over and over, managed to show through, because there was something different in Sam’s eyes then. His brother held his gaze for just a couple of seconds before nodding silently and leaving the room with his head down.

It wasn’t like they were sparing Chuck. The guy could have whatever pitiful, sad, lonely ending he could crawl into. No cheers, no fans to praise his work, not even an audience to look at him wilt away. Just him living amongst the pissed off people of Earth, smacked right in the middle of his stories, just like he always wanted.

No. This was certainly not a favor for Chuck.

Maybe it was too late, maybe all Dean would have for the rest of his life was a box of little puzzle pieces with jagged edges and worn out pictures. But, even then, he could do this.

He could give Cas this one whole.

**Author's Note:**

> A canon compliant fic? In this economy?
> 
> I thought I was ready to write a whole alternate finale where I am as self-indulgent as humanly possible but, apparently, I still find things to get stuck on.  
> I didn’t love Inherit the Earth, but I am so stuck on everything that is left unsaid by it. And we know by now that I love me some train of thought fics.


End file.
